The Loss. {closed}

[::WOLFURchik::]

This thread is to show a short part of Salena Wolfe's life apart from Kaige, and will be written strictly by me alone. I will write the story post by post, a little each day. Feel free to read along.

To catch up with the Salena's life in Caumaren, read these threads:

~Welcome to My World.
After a century of living their lives seperate, Kaige and Salena find each other face to face with their pasts, only this time, it's much, much different.

~Stay in the Clearing.
Kaige and Salena meet again, as destiny would have it. Only this time, everything is just a little confusing for the both of them.

~Such a Late Goodbye.
Kaige agrees to go on a date with Salena, but as life would have it, things just don't work out the way they planned, and later they meet a very unexpected visitor.

Other links:
~The Little Things Give You Away
Kaige handles life apart from Salena with his new "friend" Karin.

[::WOLFURchik::]

She felt her heart ripping away from her the further she walked away from that home in the woods. She had tried her best to be there for the one she loved, but apparently, none of that mattered. It never mattered. No matter how hard she tried to be who he needed her to be, she would never be anything more than Shinrin. That just wasn't good enough anymore.

It never was.

She wasn't sure where she would go, or what she would do. Already, it felt like she had been walking an eternity. Maybe that was what she could do, just... walk. She could walk off the edge of the planet and not even care. Time felt fuzzy, almost non existent, as though she were walking around in a daze.

It wasn't easy for her to walk away from the man she had loved for more than a century. She had loved him more than he could ever realize, but he no longer loved her. Maybe he never did. Maybe that was the problem. Still, she couldn't help who she was, or how she felt. He had told her that before...

The past seemed to circle her like a flock of hungry vultures. She picked up the pace, and began to run. The images flew through her mind in a frenzy. She could see her mother... abandoning her, leaving her to fend for herself. She could see Kaige, and how she looked up to him. She could see being with him, then being snatched away by her evil sisters. She remembered every last detail about her life.

But she never remembered Kaige actually admitting that he loved her. "You can't help how you feel." That was all he had admitted. She remembered how badly it confused her at first, but then she forgot about it when he lick-kissed her. But had he ever said "I love you"? She couldn't remember a time...

Her pace slowed to a stop, and she stood, staring ahead. Some how, she had made it to the city, and was now staring down a dimly lit street. The shops that lined the street were closed. Everybody had gone home for the night. It was curfew. Her arms dropped to her side, and she just stared.

Her entire life was based on false love.

None of it was real. The realization only made her heart crumble into a pile of dust. Had Kaige done the same with her as she had done with her second mate? She had agreed to be with him, only because she wanted to help him. Only because she felt it might be her only option. Her stomach twisted in knots. What was the point of her life? It would have been better if she had never been born...

She heard a noise behind her, but she completely ignored it, going against all of her survival instincts. Instead, she just stared, her breathing hardly audible. She was so confused... was any of it real? She knew what she had felt in her heart, but none of that mattered. She questioned her very purpose of being alive. In reality, she had helped no one. She had done nothing. In more than a century of living, she mattered to absolutely nothing.

The realization that she could be killed, and never remembered, scared the hell out of her. She didn't have a family. No one to love her. No one to care for... that was all she ever wanted. To feel loved. Now she was just a speck in the wind. She could be shot on the spot, and it wouldn't mean a thing.

She felt something touch her. Gently at first, then who ever it was, grabbed her, and threw her to the ground. She couldn't see anything. The person must have put a blindfold over her eyes. How had she not noticed? She felt something kick at her side, and suddenly all the air left her body. She felt it again, an overwhelming pain in her side.

She rolled over and cringed, clutching to her side, but the person was not finished. They grabbed hold of her hair, and yanked her to her feet, then slammed her against the wall. She could hear tiny cracking, and was sure she had broken something. The person dug their hands into her pockets. When they had found nothing, Salena suddenly felt a fist come in contact with the back of her head. The person laughed behind her. It was a man's voice.

He ripped at her clothes, but by that time, her mind shut down, and she blacked out. She could still feel unimaginable pain, but it was so distant... Then everything stopped, all at once. She found herself in a dark world, alone. Was this what death felt like? She laughed, her laughter sounding hollow and twisted. If this was death... it amused her how similar it was to the rest of her life. Dark, alone... The stars had predicted this. They had warned her, but she chose to ignore them. So this was it... She smiled sadly, a glimmer of anger in her eyes. She was glad to be rid of it all. She had wanted this for so long....

[::WOLFURchik::]

The commotion made her eyes flutter open. Blood matted over her eyes and kept her from seeing too well. She tried to move, but not a muscle in her body would listen to what her brain was saying. She felt like she had been crushed by a massive tree. The wind was cold against her flesh. She just wanted to die, to be rid of the horrible pain she was feeling.

"Oh my god..." She could hear a voice, but it sounded so far away. She felt herself being touched, first her neck, then who ever the man was, he attempted to pick her up. "No..." Salena breathed, her voice raspy. Her throat burned. At some point during the beating, she must have been strangled. That was nice to know.

The man continued to heave her into the air. His arms felt warm and steady, but it scared the hell out of her. "No..." She breathed in protest once more, desperately trying to flail her arms to get out of the man's grasp. "Let...me go." Her eyes sealed themselves shut, blood rushing to her head. "Get off..." She sobbed, her fear uncontrollable. She didn't want to go with this man. She didn't want to be hurt again.

Out of her control, she faded from the world once more, her mind hazy and dark. She knew she was being carried away, but where, and by whom, she wasn't sure. Not knowing scared her, but there was nothing she could do. She was completely powerless and at the man's mercy. Tears ran down her dirt ridden face.

"I'm taking you to the hospital." The man choked, his voice revealed that he was startled by the scene he had uncovered. "NO!" she suddenly burst out loudly, so loudly that it nearly made the man drop her. "Not the hospital... Please..."

The man bit his lip, and turned away from the direction he was originally headed in. "Your lucky I'm a doctor!" The man whispered. "Well, almost..."

He took her to some boring house near the edge of the city. It was still very early, so there had been no witnesses just yet. The man took her inside and placed her very carefully on his own bed. For hours, he tended to her, trying to keep her from fading. Every now and then, he would talk to her. He would ask her questions. Who she was, where she came from, and if she knew anybody. She didn't have answers to any of those.

"I don't know..." Was all she could mumble through the agony. The man frowned. So far, from what he could tell, she was hurt very badly, with some broken ribs, a serious concussion, and not to mention she seemed to have grown a fear of men. Whether it came before or after the incident, he wasn't sure.

"I thought this was a peaceful place..." she finally muttered, not sure where it came from. The man frowned, and focused carefully, removing bits of splinters from her arms, chest, and legs. "Well..." The man started, but he never finished. The girl had fallen asleep before he could. He was glad though, he didn't want to bring up anything he had known about. Being a doctor meant learning much of the city's secrets. He had only agreed to bring her back to his house because he knew that she would probably be killed in the hospital. Most time, a victim of a beating this severe usually was, in order to keep news from reaching the rest of the city.

--

It wasn't until days later than she had finally awoken. She grasped her head in pain. Every portion of her body felt like it was on fire, but at least she could move.

"Hey there, little Jane Doe." The brown haired man beamed down at her. He held a knife in her hand, and the girl screamed, kicking at the feet of her bed. "Whoa, whoa! Slow down there!" He tried to calm her down. "I'm just making toast!" He demonstrated by spreading butter onto a piece of finely toasted bread. "Are you trying to kill yourself?" He muttered. The girl said nothing.

The man placed his plate down on the bedside table, and sat down in the wooden chair he had pulled up to keep an eye on her. The look he was giving her creeped her out. "My name is Devyn. And yours is..."

The girl had to think for a while. She stared up at the ceiling, trying to focus in on those tiny little fuzzy thoughts that were swirling around in her head. She felt like a snowman in a snow globe. "Um..." She attempted to remember, but she couldn't. "I'm sorry, I still don't know..."

Devyn shrugged and sighed. "Oh well... guess I'll just keep calling you Jane Doe. You don't look like a Jane, but I guess it'll work for now."

She couldn't help but think of how strange the guy was. He seemed way too nice. His hair flowed out differently than any man she could recall seeing before. And besides all that, he was a doctor, and for some reason, that just creeped her out. However, he wasn't ugly. In fact, she thought he was fairly nice looking. She liked his tanned skin, and even his chocolate eyes. But she was still in no way going to trust him.

[::WOLFURchik::]

"Why are you doing this?" Jane Doe asked the following day.

"Hm?" Devyn replied, reading his notes. He was amazed at how quickly she seemed to be recovering. "What do you mean?"

"Why are you helping me? You've never met me. I could be a serial killer, all you know."

Devyn laughed, checking off a small list. "I'm training to be a doctor. Helping people is in my job description." He looked over at her and gave her a wink. "Besides, I've never seen a serial killer with such beautiful eyes."

Jane Doe rolled her eyes, and looked away, even though her cheeks turned a slight pinkish color. It had been like this since she had woken up. Doctor cutie always made his stupid remarks, flirting like he was some love crazed preteen. It was disguisting. Though, she didn't mind it too much.

"Well, everything is looking good. Better than they were anyway. How do you feel?" Jane Doe shrugged, then slowly, carefully, forced herself into a sitting position. She rolled her aching shoulders. "Like shit." She answered honestly. Devyn laughed.

"If you feel up to it, we could take you on a walk today." Jane Doe scoffed. "I'm not a dog, you know." Somehow, she couldn't help but feel that that statement was a little ironic.

"I know, I just want to see how well you can stand and walk. I wont push you to do anything you don't want to do." Jane Doe rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, like I'd much rather sit here all day."

Devyn crossed his arms across his chest. "You are a fiesty little one." He smirked. "It's alright. I like that sort of thing." He ducked from a pillow the patient had launched across the room at him. "Well, well!" He spoke excitedly, laughing. "Your reflexes are looking much, much better!" Jane Doe just glared, blowing a razzberry at him. Devyn laughed.

----

Devyn waited till nightfall, like Jane Doe had suggested. He wasn't sure why the girl would want to take a walk at night, especially considering the incident she had just ran into just days ago. However, he respected her decision, and decided to go with her, to make sure she didn't get herself into anymore trouble.

"I'm letting you walk at night, but there is no way I'm letting you into the woods." Devyn rejected Jane Doe's offer. "Oh, come on. Are you really that chicken?" She protested. Devyn put a finger on his chin, as though he were thinking about it, then quickly answered. "Yup." He put his arms together like chicken wings, clucking like an idiot.

Jane Doe rolled her eyes, then laughed. This guy was a serious goof ball. At least it was entertaining to watch. "Alright, alright." She finally gave in. "But if I get stabbed, I am so blaming you." Devyn raised his hands in defense. "Okay, okay! Fine by me!"

Jane Doe rolled her eyes, and began walking. At first, it was tough getting all her aching muscles to behave properly, but once she got into rythem, it was easy peasy. Devyn walked close behind her. It was an akward feeling at first, but then the feeling of somebody having her back grew on her, and she let him walk even closer behind her.

"This is just a dead end." Devyn warned her, but he was emmediately shushed. Jane Doe didn't want to be bothered by talking. She enjoyed listening to the songs of the night; the crickets churping, the cool breeze against the leaves... Since Taikai Ueki was so natural and beautiful, it felt like she was right there in the woods, minus all the creepy crawlies.

She stopped just at the end of one of the walkways, and put her hands gently on the railing. She needed a break, but more than that, she just wanted to gaze up at the moon. "Its beautiful, isn't it?" She whispered. Devyn looked up at the sky. "Hm? Oh, the Moon? Yeah, sure." He pointed up at a cluster of stars and smiled. "That constellation right there is the magni-aranea." He looked over at her. "Or as I like to call it, big hairy spider."

Jane Doe chuckled at his joke. "Yeah... its the only constellation I know." Devyn admitted, scratching at the back of his head. Jane Doe rested her arms on the wooden hand railings, and set her head gently on top as she watched the wind rustle the tops of the massive trees in the forest. New thoughts began to make their way in her mind... who was she? Where had she come from? For some reason, she felt like she didn't really want to find out.

She stared into the stars. It was weird, how they seemed to sparkle, and almost dance. It was almost as if they were talking to her. She kept her eyes on the magni-aranea constellation, following their glittering movement. Then for a moment, just for a split second, she saw something. It wasn't much, but it meant a lot to her. She turned to Devyn with a big smile on her face.

"Shinrin."

Devyn looked at her with a puzzled look. "Hm?"

"Shinrin. That's my name."

Devyn's smile lit up. He was glad to finally see that she was beginning to remember things, even if it was only her name. At least he could call her by her real name from now on. "Well... Shinrin. Would you like to go back?"

Shinrin thought about it for a moment, then slowly nodded. She was feeling tired, and whether she wanted to or not, she knew she needed to get plenty of rest. "Alright." She sighed, moving away from the edge of the platform.

The two headed back quietly, enjoying the quiet air. Even Devyn felt much more peaceful after watching the sky. It had been a long time since he had been able to just stop and look and listen. He would highly recommend it.

When Devyn could finally see his home in the distance, he caught a depressing sound. Shinrin had started to cry. It was very soft, almost inaudible, but he had caught it. Sensing that she was upset about something, he reached up and gently grabbed hold of her hand.

Shinrin stopped in her place, and looked over at Devyn. She didn't pull away or fight him. She just didn't have the energy. Instead, she just stared, for what felt like a very long time, before she noticed he was starting to close in on her.

She felt her heart thumping wildly, pulling at her, pleading with her to panic. She wanted to flee, to just run away, but for some, sad reason, she kept her feet planted to the ground, and she met him halfway.

Their lips met, and for a brief second, Shinrin wondered if this was okay. She had only known Devyn for a few short days, but in those few days, he had been there for her. He had cared for her, had called her beautiful... And she felt that this might have been the very first time she had heart those words before.

Devyn finally pulled away, a startled look on his face. "I'm sorry!" He said, almost in a panic. "I just... you looked upset. I-" Shinrin looked away, towards his house. "It's alright..."
She said, almost sadly. "I need to rest, though."
Devyn nodded, looking away. He let go of her hand, and distanced himself from her. He felt so dumb for having reacted so quickly, within such a short amount of time. And yet, there was something about this girl he just couldn't help but...like.

When he looked up again, Shinrin had gotten closer to him, and was walking right beside him. The back of her hand brushed up against his invitingly, and he reached out and slowly gentle hold of it. A light smile stretched across his face. Shinrin just looked away. She still wasn't sure how to feel, but for the time being, this was better than nothing.